Crying that he was going to get Aunt Maria Garner, he ran out of the house. The negro cabin was some three hundred yards behind the big house. Pen used the interim to get her thoughts in some kind of order. She began to be conscious of a sort of exaltation. Her thoughts ran: "He's in trouble! I shall not lose him now! ... Every man's hand is raised against him. He has no one but me to depend on. He's mine!" There was a terrible joy in the thought of standing side by side with him against the whole world. Her breast burned with a fire of resolution. She even had a fleeting regret that he was not guilty; if he had been it would have required her to give so much more. "I love him! I love him!" she said to herself now without shame. Pendleton returned with Aunt Maria. Pen was aware of Ellick's and Theodo's black faces peering in at the windows. This interfered with her plans. "Send them away," she murmured. "There is nothing they can do." Aunt Maria went out on the porch and shooed her sons home. Coming back the big negress picked Pen up without more ado and carried her up the stairs. Aunt Maria had been the first person in the world to receive Pen into her arms, and appeared to be unconscious of any increase in her darling's weight. Pendleton fluttered about her like a hen crying at every step: "Be careful! Oh, be careful!" Aunt Maria laid Pen down on her bed. In the midst of his passionate solicitude, a queer little suspicion flickered up in Pendleton's eyes. "While I am gone for the doctor don't let her exert herself in the slightest," he commanded. Aunt Maria reassured him and he hastened out of the house. The instant the front door closed behind him Pen sat up in bed, and felt of her hair. Aunt Maria took it as a matter of course. Unlettered though she might be, she had a fully-developed set of instincts; she knew that all sorts of expedients were required to manage those unreasonable creatures, men, and she awaited the explanation with an air of being surprised at nothing and ready for anything. "I've got to go out," said Pen, exchanging her evening slippers for a pair of rubber-soled sneakers. Aunt Maria looked rather dubious. Pen saw that she would win her more securely by appealing to her sense of romance. She began: "That young man who had lunch and dinner with us..." Aunt Maria's broad face softened and her eyes rolled zestfully. "There is a story in the paper accusing him of murder!" It was not what Aunt Maria expected. Her chin dropped, and her eyes almost started from her head. "Bless God!" she murmured. "Father means to give him up. So I'm going down to warn him." In Aunt Maria fear overcame romance. "Honey ... honey!" she stammered. "Doan yo' go down there! Doan yo' take no chances! If he's a bad man he'll hurt yo'!" "A bad man!" cried Pen with shining eyes. "Aunt Maria where were your eyes!"